PERCEPTION

 

There’s a lot of talk about exit velocity and the speed of the ball of the bat. In my eyes, the only speed that matters is arm speed.

My arm speed has to be the same for every pitch I throw, helping the hitter to see one thing when another is coming. The aim is to not allow the opponent’s eyes to adjust properly and detect exactly what’s coming.

I’ve always been big and some days, I look in the mirror and see the results of my workout routine, see what all the hard work is earning.

But the rose petals are ruined once I step on the scale.

Suddenly, that image in the mirror isn’t what it was before. Instead of a sharp slider digging into a lefty, it’s a pumpkin-sized changeup floating on a carpet up to the plate.

It’s a pitch like this that I just released and watched get hit so hard, I plan to apologize to the next baseball for its cousin’s troubles.

It’s the start of a bad inning, one that snuck up on me without warning and now I’m in the middle of. It’s a situation that looks to be already out of control. A pile of books, covered in gasoline-drenched rags waiting for a light.

But until the match is struck, there’s something any true fan of anything has to have.

Hope.